NASA Launching New Mission to Mars Today: How to Watch Live

A NASA probe is scheduled to launch to Mars today (Nov. 18), and you can watch it live online.
The space agency’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution spacecraft (MAVEN) is scheduled to launch atop its Atlas 5 rocket at 1:28 p.m. EST (1828 GMT) from here at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. You can watch the launch live on SPACE.com via NASA TV, beginning at 11 a.m. EST (1600 GMT).
The $671 million MAVEN will investigate the atmosphere of Mars in order to understand what could have happened to the planet in the past. Scientists think that ancient Mars had a thick atmosphere that supported liquid water, however, at some point in the planet’s past, that changed and Mars morphed into the cold desert it is now. Mars’ atmosphere is now about 1 percent as thick as that of Earth’s.